Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones Narrated by Gemma Whelan

Overview

"Chilling . . . A neo-gothic treat; original, richly imagined, and powerfully told." --The Guardian (UK) for The String Diaries

See the girl. Leah Wilde is twenty-four, a runaway on a black motorbike, hunting for answers while changing her identity with each new Central European town.

See the man, having come of age in extraordinary suffering and tragedy in nineteenth-century Budapest; witness to horror, to love, to death, and the wrath of a true monster. Izsák still lives in the present day, impossibly middle-aged. He's driven not only to hunt this immortal evil but to find his daughter, stolen from an Arctic cabin and grown into the thing Izsák has sworn to kill.

See the monster, a beautiful, seemingly young woman who stalks the American West, seeking the young and the strong to feed upon, desperate to return to Europe where her coven calls.

Written in the Blood is the epic thriller of the year, a blazing and dexterous saga spanning generations, and threading the lives of five individuals driven by love, by sacrifice, by hunger and by fear. They seek to save a race--or to extinguish it forever.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

03/16/2015
British author Jones’s ponderous sequel to 2014’s The String Diaries focuses on heroic Leah Wilde, a hybrid member of a wealthy and powerful dynasty of shape-shifters, the hosszú életek. Since their birth rate is low, Leah must persuade her paranoid line that a new way has been found for hosszú életek to reproduce. While doing so, Leah is pursued by a deranged hosszú életek, as well as by the tolvaj, an evil creature that feeds on the souls of shape-shifters. In a flashback, orphan Izsák Balázs faces the tolvaj during a pogrom of the hosszú életek in Hungary of 1880 that seems to mark the end of the hosszú életek. The story moves forward at a turgid pace as the author hops from subplot to subplot and holds back information that his characters are aware of but the reader is not. Pointillist sensory descriptions nicely evoke the setting, however, and characters are well-drawn gothic types. A rousing finale belies this fantasy thriller’s frustrating middle portion. Agent: Sam Copeland, Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.). (May)

From the Publisher

"Always engaging . . . A blend of grace and gore . . . Fans of TV's "The Walking Dead" should love Mr. Jones."—Margie Romero, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Stephen Lloyd Jones' 2014 debut novel, The String Diaries, was a stunning, supernatural ride. His 2015 follow-up, Written in the Blood, surpasses that success, greatly expanding the world and mythology he created in an even bigger, more ambitious and more fully-realized tale. . . . A sprawling, suspenseful and massively engrossing tale, Written in the Blood spans centuries and perspectives to paint a portrait of the rise and fall of a species that incorporates politics, grudges, romance, treachery, struggle and intrigue, all masterfully spun around a handful of connected players. It's a rich story that has the detail and precision of a scholastic study thrust upon the suspense and visual grandeur of a cinematic thriller."—Brooke Wylie, Examiner.com

"An exciting and absorbing tale"—Sarah Rachel Egelman, BookReporter.com

"The pace is so fast that readers are essentially propelled through the book, carried from one character to another, bouncing around from one place in the world to another, completely caught up in the story. A novel that's just as good as the one that came before-and, in this case, that means essential reading for devotees of high-end sf."—Booklist (starred review)

PRAISE FOR THE STRING DIARIES:


"Terrifying, and deliciously so . . . A sophisticated horror story that induces elemental terror. It's perfect for the beach, particularly since you don't want to be alone with it in the dark."—New York Daily News

"The String Diaries is an engrossing, mind-bending supernatural tale, and Stephen Lloyd Jones is as exciting a new voice as I've come across in some time, a writer who understands what makes the pulse race."—Michael Koryta, author of Those Who Wish Me Dead

Kirkus Reviews

2015-02-17
Leah Wilde, one of the last descendants of the hosszú életek, a mythic Hungarian clan with shape-shifting abilities, risks her life against dark forces in an attempt to save her widely scattered people from extinction. In The String Diaries (2014), the first book in this series, Leah and her mother, Hannah, were stalked in America by the monstrous Jakab, a rogue member of the clan. Only then did Hannah discover she had illegitimate blood ties to him. Fifteen years later, she heads up dangerous efforts to produce hosszú életek babies through blood infusions. Meanwhile, Leah confronts ruthless criminals who were banished from the sect to seek their help in the fertility program. The sequel moves between the present, in a variety of European locations—where an evil strain of body snatchers thirsts for fresh blood—and 1870s Hungary. There, an orphaned boy, Izsák, is forever scarred after his family is subjected to horrific punishment rites. He meets a girl, Etienne, who, like him, will leave a mark on the future. Few living writers of supernatural thrillers equal Jones' powers of imagination and overall vision. His first book spent so much energy setting up its premise that it ran out of plot and ideas. The far superior sequel is a complete success, both in narrative terms—it's a page-turner—and in evoking horrific movements in modern European history. There are a few too many cliffhanger-type chapter endings, but Jones delivers on their promise in dramatic, violent fashion. A superior sequel, Jones' tale of a people struggling for survival is as emotionally compelling as it is frightening.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170235285
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	05/26/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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